


Light in the Darkness, Metaphorically Speaking

by DoubleApple



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Also a lot of Muffliato-ing, Blow Jobs, Enthusiastic Consent, First Time Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Mutual Masturbation, Nightmares, Pining, Post-Book: Harry Potter, Sooooo much pining, wanking, well... actually kind of incomplete not-really-actually blow jobs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-11-28 18:58:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11424102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoubleApple/pseuds/DoubleApple
Summary: A little forgiveness and a lot of comfort from some unexpected places.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was a weird labor of love, and I'm still not really sure what it's about -- except that I couldn't stop trying to figure out how these poor eighth-years could possibly recover from what they'd been through, and I wanted them to be able to, so I decided to write it. :) 
> 
> Un-beta-ed and kinda random, so thanks in advance for your patience.
> 
> Disclaimer: All characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and 100% not mine, of course. I wish they were!

“He looks awfully peaky, doesn’t he,” Ron said, his head resting on Hermione’s lap. They were sprawled on a lumpy couch in front of a low fire in the common room.

“‘Peaky’ is a dramatic understatement.” Hermione’s face was concerned, her dark eyes sharp. “He looks like he hasn’t slept in a year.” 

“I’m sitting right here,” Harry said, trying to muster up enough energy to feel annoyed. But Hermione was practically right — he hadn’t slept well in ages. They were three weeks into their eighth year, the year that shouldn’t have been. But the students who’d been in the battle of Hogwarts weren’t ready for the rest of their lives yet. They wanted to finish school, and they needed some time to recover in the safest place they knew. 

Few enough of the eighth-years had returned that they were no longer divided into houses, and Harry and Ron were in a large boys’ dormitory with Seamus, Blaise, Neville... and Draco Malfoy, all sharing a room. Honestly, Harry knew Draco’s presence should bother him — it certainly seemed to bother Ron, quite a lot — but who had the energy? 

That didn’t mean Harry wanted to be any closer to Malfoy, whose bed was on his left, with Ron’s on his right. It just meant he was too tired to care. 

Harry hadn’t gotten a full night’s sleep since before they’d camped in that damn tent in the Forest of Dean. Every night, he was treated to a host of horrors by his subconscious. Obvious things, of course, like Voldemort’s face looming up out of nothingness, and giant hissing snakes, and his friends in danger. But stranger things too — his parents drowning, trapped beneath a lake, shot with a Muggle handgun, stuck in a burning straw hut or an immense skyscraper. Sirius or Lupin or George shouting at him in the middle of Kings Cross. Chasing someone through the castle, menacing shadows moving to obstruct his way, unable to call out. Stairs that turned into slides, mysterious open fields where he heard whispers in the wind from birds and mice and trees. Ancient towers with endless stone corridors and no way out. Disembodied voices screaming his name, in pain, out of sight. Everyone hurt, angry, disappointed, frightened, dying. Harry was always powerless and frozen, or panicked and running for his life, or alone and terrified. 

The nightmares were worse than the exhaustion, his subconscious decided, quite apart from his own rational thoughts. So, once he awoke from one of the awful dreams, he could never go back to sleep. Even if he’d only been out for an hour or two, even if it meant he would never get more than a few hours’ sleep a night for the rest of his life. 

****

*******

Draco, deep in sleep, found himself scrabbling for his wand before he even knew what he was hearing — muttered curses and hexes, coming from the next bed over. The room was inky black; it must have been the deepest part of the night. The curses escalated quickly, into frightened shouting in a voice he recognized. 

Draco fumbled his way out of bed, realizing it was Harry, cursing and calling out. He flung open the drapes and saw Harry thrashing on his bed, a tangle of blankets around him. It almost looked as though he was ill; without even thinking, Draco reached out a hand and shook Harry’s shoulder. Draco was rougher than he needed to be, his fearful heart pounding in his ears. 

“Potter,” he whispered. “Potter! Wake up.” 

Harry bolted upright, jerking away from Draco’s hand, his hair wild, wand arm extended but his hand empty. His eyes flew open and he moved to lash out at Draco, who bit back the nasty remark on the tip of his tongue. The look of pure, wild terror on Harry’s face stopped him cold. 

“I— oh. Oh. Er. Malfoy,” Harry said, his voice rough as he visibly tried to regain control of himself. “Hey.” 

“Hey?” Draco couldn’t bite that back, thanks to the flood of relief that washed over him. “Hey! Well, _yo_ , Potter, how’s it hanging? Wake up screaming in the middle of the night much? I thought you were being murdered in your sleep.” Draco struggled to get himself under control as well, drawing a deep breath in ( _1, 2, 3, 4_ ) and letting a slower breath out ( _1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8_ ) the way the mind Healer had taught him. His mother had made him go so many times, and that infernal cow had repeated herself so often, that it was almost like second nature now. Although, he admitted to himself grudgingly, one supposes that’s the whole point. 

Frowning, Harry shushed Draco and cast a strong Muffliato. It gave Draco a moment to wonder why the idea of Harry in peril was so upsetting to him that his heart was still trying to hammer its way out of his chest. 

“Er, sorry. Silencing charm must have worn off when I was asleep. Sorry I woke you.” Harry scrubbed both his hands over his face and ran them through his hair, not looking at Draco. 

“For fuck’s sake, Potter,” Draco said, taking another calming breath. “Are you all right?” 

“Yeah,” Harry said, still not meeting Draco's eyes. “I’m bloody brilliant.” Draco couldn’t remember ever hearing that bitterness in Harry’s voice before, and he gave him a long look before backing away, letting the heavy curtains around his bed fall into place. 

Draco climbed back into his own bed and shut his own heavy curtains. He stared up into the canopied darkness, listening to the silence coming from the next bed, until he finally drifted off again. 

****

*******

The next night, Harry again awoke to find Draco with a hand on his back as he called out in his sleep. He jerked away as soon as he was awake enough to recognize what was happening. But Draco was looking at him through that maddening white-blond fringe with pity, or tenderness, or understanding, or _something_ , and Harry couldn’t take it. Everyone looked at him like that now, all the bloody time, and his bed was suddenly too hot and too close, with Malfoy — of all people, sodding Draco Malfoy — looking at him like that... 

Without even knowing what he was doing, Harry found himself flinging the covers off, blindly shoving Draco aside, and sprinting down the hall to the old prefects’ washroom. 

He burst in, banged the heavy door shut behind him, and backed up against it. He looked around wildly, making sure no one else was there. There was nothing, ghost or student or otherwise; Harry’s own harsh, panicked breathing was the only sound echoing in the shadowy room. 

His back still against the door, Harry slid down to sit on the freezing marble floor. And then he pulled up his knees, rested his elbows on them, and cradled his own head in his arms, sobbing and shaking and gulping air, alone, for a very long time. 

****

*******

Draco stared after Harry when he ran out of the room. Then he stared at the empty doorway, and then he stared at the sleeping boys in the room. None of them bothered to draw their drapes, apparently, the way he and Harry both did. Ron was splayed out, the covers half off, snoring open-mouthed. Dean was curled up like a little child; Seamus was shirtless and lying on his stomach with the covers tangled around his waist, silent, his muscular back on full display. (Not bad, Draco noted, filing that away in some other mental compartment.) All of them were completely still. How could they possibly sleep through this? 

The next night, Draco meant to go in prepared.


	2. Chapter 2

Draco slid into his own bed with his silky dressing gown wrapped tightly around him and decided not to close his bedcurtains. He cast Lumos and stared at the same two pages of his impenetrable Advanced Potions textbook until he thought he heard Harry wake up. It didn’t take long.

Trying to be silent, Draco slipped out of his bed and padded over to Harry’s. He cast Muffliato and opened Harry’s curtains. Again, Harry was sprawled out on his stomach, thrashing and muttering — not curses this time but what sounded like begging, pleading, for someone to stop something. Draco steeled himself and swallowed hard. _Do this right_ , he told himself. 

He reached out one hand and set his palm gingerly on Potter’s back, tracing a gentle circle. An echo of Narcissa, sitting by his childhood bed and rubbing circles on his back to lull him back to sleep, tugged at the corner of Draco’s mind. It dawned on him, for the first time: Harry had never had that. What had happened when he was a child? Who comforted him in the middle of the night, when he was scared or sick? Certainly not those wretched Muggle relatives of his, who’d made him sleep in some sort of horrid closet. Draco had heard the stories. Everyone had heard the stories, by now. 

Harry was getting more agitated, breathing unevenly, his face contorted in fear. 

“Potter,” Draco whispered. Nothing. He leaned closer. “Potter! Er, Harry,” he tried, the name feeling awkward and unfamiliar in his mouth. He shook Harry’s shoulder a bit. It was startlingly warm, but thin and bony. Draco leaned closer. “Harry!” he called in full voice, and with that, Harry sat bolt upright and flung Draco’s arm off. 

Harry’s eyes flew open and he shouted something incoherent — Draco winced and caught his breath, but the Muffliato held — and scrambled for his wand. Draco took a guess and reached under Harry’s pillow, pulled out his wand, and handed it to him dubiously, a bit afraid of what he was going to do with it. The wild look on Harry’s face didn’t disappear, but only then did he seem to come to himself and realize where he was. 

***

What the fuck was Malfoy doing in his bed again? 

Harry cast a shaky Lumos and tried to look anywhere other than at Draco. He was still breathing hard when he finally sat up. He kept avoiding Draco’s eyes, but he didn’t run to the loo to hide this time. He didn’t have the energy. 

Silent, Draco held out one of his infernal white handkerchiefs. 

“Is this a sodding _hankie_ , Malfoy?” Harry finally looked into Draco’s eyes and instantly regretted it, hated the pity and the worry he found there. He scowled and ground the heels of his hands into his eyes. He scowled at the handkerchief, too. He didn’t really know what he was supposed to do with the thing, but he took it anyway and impulsively pressed it to his sweaty face. The hankerchief must have been charmed to stay cool, and it smelled of something sharp like a pine tree. Harry pressed it to his overheated cheeks and held it to his closed eyes, using it as an excuse to buy more time to collect himself. He did feel a bit better when he finally lowered it again. 

Draco was pulling out a deck of cards from the pocket of his robe. 

“What are those, Malfoy?” Harry asked, not believing what he was seeing. 

“Cards, obviously. For Exploding Snap,” he answered, then balked at the expression on Harry’s face. “What?” he sneered, with a touch of his old iciness. “I thought you liked this infantile game.” 

“I did,” he said. “I mean, I do. I just never thought... well, I haven’t played it for a while, is all.” 

“Would you like to play or not?” Malfoy asked. “I’m quite capable of going back to my own bed—” but Harry cut him off, because found he really, really didn’t want Draco to leave. 

“Okay, yeah, I’ll just play Snap with Malfoy here in the middle of the night, sure,” he said out loud, to no one in particular. “This makes perfect sense.” 

Draco bristled more. “I suppose you have a better idea?” 

Harry took a long breath. He’d already embarrassed himself half to death; he may as well keep going. 

“No, I don’t,” Harry admitted, exhaling in a rush. “Snap it is, then.” 

The two of them played long into the night, not talking, cocooned by Harry's heavy bedcurtains. They won and lost in equal measure, until Draco went on a six-game losing streak and looked like he was about to keel over from exhaustion. 

“You should go to bed, Malfoy,” Harry said, watching him stifle another yawn and resisting the temptation to — where had this come from? — smooth Draco’s hair back from his face. 

Draco protested but Harry insisted, and Draco reluctantly unfolded that long body of his and started back to his bed. 

“Malfoy,” Harry said, just as he was leaving. Draco turned, shadows hollowing his face even further. “Thanks,” Harry whispered. “For keeping me company. I appreciate you. I mean, it. I appreciate it.” 

Draco looked... was that a smile? Just the ghost of one, but it looked genuine. 

“Any time, Potter,” he whispered, and slipped out of the drapes. Harry stared after him, wondering what both of them were playing at now.


	3. Chapter 3

All the next day, Malfoy was so bloody _aware_ of Harry, and of how awful he looked. Couldn’t everyone see it? His face was positively gray, the shadows beneath his eyes growing by the moment, and his skinny shoulders seemed bowed with the weight of the world. 

He even nodded off in Potions, which would have cost Gryffindor at least five points back when anyone cared about the House Cup. House pride was another casualty of the war, at least for the eighth years. Now, an infraction like that just earned a gentle prod from Slughorn’s wand and a tiny vial of Pepper-Up Potion, which Harry downed like a shot but seemed to have no effect at all. 

In fact, it seemed like the opposite. Harry went to bed early that night and was already asleep, or at least in bed, by the time Draco got back to their room after dinner. Harry hadn’t been in the Great Hall; either he’d taken dinner in the common room or he’d gone to bed without it. But either way, there were the noises again, after only a few restless hours.

Casting yet another Muffliato, Draco opened Harry’s curtains again, expecting the same scene as the night before. But this time, Harry, lying flat on his stomach, didn’t stir when Draco climbed in next to him. His back was heaving and his breathing was uneven. With a jolt, Draco realized that Harry was sobbing in his sleep this time. His face was turned into a pillow already wet with tears. 

It was harder to wake him, too. Draco shook his shoulder hard and felt a frission of real fear when Harry didn’t respond, just thrashed and sobbed and Merlin, Draco thought, this was fucking _awful_. 

He had another wild thought — where are the adults? who is looking after this boy? — but that was ridiculous. There was no one to help. Draco took a breath and steeled himself: They were the adults now themselves, here and now.

Draco stretched himself out beside Harry and spoke into his ear. “Potter, wake up. You’re dreaming.” 

Harry’s face twisted and his whole body shook. Draco rubbed a hand up and down his arm tentatively, worried. He’d imagined touching Harry... well, more than once, but not like this. 

“ _Harry_ ,” he said more forcefully. “Wake up. You’re having a dream,” and once again Harry sat bolt upright, almost smacking into Draco — but this time, he was still sobbing blindly. Draco gripped his arm. 

“It’s okay, Harry, it’s okay,” Draco whispered, even closer to his ear. “It’s a nightmare. You’re just dreaming,” he repeated, and immediately regretted the “just.” This was no mere nightmare and Potter wasn’t snapping out of it, even though he was partially awake. His face was contorted with terror; he looked wild and panicked. 

Draco groped for the right words, the ones that would make this better. “Harry, I’m here,” he tried. “I’ve got you.” 

They were both sitting up in bed now. Relieved, Draco finally saw awareness return to Harry’s face as he struggled for control, entirely vulnerable without his glasses, tears wracking his body. He covered his face with one hand, trying to turn away. 

“What? What... oh, fucking hell,” he breathed. “Fuck. I’m sorry. Malfoy. This is— I’m—”

“Stop. It’s okay. C’mere,” and fuck it all, Draco thought, as he pulled Harry close to him. He was crying in earnest again, huge gasping sobs. He leaned into Draco’s body and tentatively rested his face, still covered by his hand, in the crook of Draco’s neck. Draco wrapped his arms around Harry, and in return, he felt an almost imperceptible softening, a relaxing. 

Draco felt Harry start to trust him. 

“I’m sorry,” Harry whispered again. 

“You have nothing to be sorry for, Potter. Nothing at all,” Draco whispered back, and Harry gripped him back, then, strong arms clutching him tight. Harry sobbed into his neck, into the collar of his robe, and Draco pressed his palms flat against Harry’s back, tracing gentle circles. Harry’s back heaved, his whole body shaking. 

Draco was not entirely unfamiliar with this kind of crying, alone and overwhelmed and terrified in the middle of the night — not that he’d ever admit it. He reached up and smoothed Harry’s hair. 

“I’m here, Potter, I’m here.” Draco repeated, his voice soft. ”You’re not alone,” he added, but he thought that made Harry sob harder, so he tightened his grip and just held on. They were sitting so awkwardly, with Harry practically in his lap, but Draco didn’t dare move his legs. He rested one hand on the back of Harry’s neck, covering that vulnerable spot, still holding him as hard as he could. 

Draco didn’t know how long it lasted, maybe 20 minutes, maybe an hour. But eventually he realized that Harry’s shaking was subsiding and his breathing had evened out. Harry had fallen back to sleep. Draco allowed himself one long, lingering look at Harry’s face, no longer contorted with tears but still somehow tense and unhappy, even in sleep. 

Gently, unable to resist brushing his lips across Harry’s forehead just one time, Draco eased him down onto the rumpled pillows. He untangled himself silently, and then crept back to his own bed. He stared up at the ceiling, like he’d picked up the burden of sleeplessness that Harry had laid down, until light began to glow at the edges of the curtains.

***

It was like the universe was determined to humiliate him in front of Malfoy as much as possible, Harry thought, as he dragged himself down to the Quidditch pitch that afternoon. Last night had been beyond embarrassing; he couldn’t even think about it too hard for fear of it overwhelming him. He’d literally run away from Malfoy when he’d seen him coming into the Great Hall at breakfast — not that that had helped the awkwardness any.

And now, he wasn’t even sure how he’d manage to stay on a broom, he was so distracted and keyed up. He couldn’t stop thinking about Draco, how strange and ashamed he felt that he’d been caught in his nightmares multiple times, crying, out of control. How tightly he’d clung to Malfoy. How warm and solid he was, far less bony than Harry had ever imagined. (When had he first started imagining what Draco’s body would feel like? It seemed a while ago, and yet...). 

Harry remembered his dream from last night — something about being trapped in the lake, which often featured prominently in his nightly horror show. He’d felt unbearably cold and alone in the dream, but some warmth had begun to creep in toward the end, and when he’d woken up, he’d realized that that warmth was Draco. He couldn’t stop thinking about how much less afraid he’d become, as soon as that warmth had entered his consciousness. How bizarrely safe he’d begun to feel. How he’d been able to fall back to sleep after a nightmare, for the first time since he’d been back at Hogwarts. 

But why, he asked himself, on top of everything else, did he have to be dwelling on that pointy git? It was almost like his body was physically reacting to Draco. Like he just couldn’t stop thinking about Draco’s arms around him, their limbs tangled together, his hands on his back and his neck, the way he’d whispered so gently, how close his body...

Oh. 

Harry stopped dead in his tracks, only a few yards from the pitch. 

“Fuck,” he said aloud, the realization spreading down his body like a hot flush of shame. “Fuck, fuck, fuck me.”

“No thanks, mate,” Ron said cheerfully, coming up behind him. 

Harry smiled despite himself. “Not you, you wanker.”

“Someone else, then?” Ron smiled, teasing, but Harry looked at him — this mad thing with Malfoy was making him look at the whole world more carefully today — and Harry realized with a start that Ron didn’t look well at all. 

Harry, lost in his thoughts, was jolted back to reality when he realized Ron was in the middle of a tentative question, wondering about the same thing. “—know we were joking about it the other day, but seriously, we know this is, erm, a difficult time and whatnot, and we’ve been wanting to ask you... are you all right, Harry?”

There was so much vulnerability in the question, so much genuine worry, that Harry felt ashamed. Ron shouldn’t be worrying about him; it should be the other way around. His brother was dead, for Merlin’s sake. Harry could never bother Ron with his problems. With stupid nightmares and insomnia and exhaustion. With bloody Draco Malfoy. 

“Oh, yeah,” he said, trying to sound convincing. “Just some trouble sleeping, but I’m all right, Ron, really. Are you, though, mate?”

His friend hesitated. 

“Not really,” Ron admitted, sounding like a shadow of his usual self. “Not sure if I’ll ever be all right. You know how I mean, yeah?”

“Yeah. I do,” Harry said quietly, swallowing the lump in his throat. He couldn’t talk any more, so he just slung an arm around Ron and they kept walking down to the pitch, together but apart.

***

A few nights passed for Draco with no sounds from the bed next to his. He thought maybe Harry was sleeping better, although his pale face told a different story. Harry was the picture of exhaustion. But he was also avoiding Draco, and after that night of tears, Draco decided to give him some space. 

Which was why, a few nights later, Draco was shocked to see Harry’s face appear through his own bedcurtains. It was just a few minutes after he’d laid down, when Draco was hard and aching and thinking about that very face. It was oh so very wrong for him to consider wanking to thoughts of Harry, especially when he was all sad and vulnerable... and yet...

“Aargh, Potter, what?!” Draco jumped and scrabbled for his wand, then yanked the covers around him. 

Harry had the nerve to smirk. “Sorry, Malfoy, was I interrupting something?”

“What? No!” Yes you bloody were, Draco thought.

“Ah, okay.” Harry suddenly looked hesitant, or something. It was hard to read his face in the shadows. 

Draco frantically tried to build up his defenses and made his voice as haughty as possible. “So were you just dropping by my bed to say hello at midnight, then? Is this a formal call?”

“Forget it, Malfoy. I just thought... no, forget it,” Harry repeated, and stepped back from the curtains. 

“Potter! Damn it. Come back here.” Draco quickly rearranged the covers and pulled the waistband of his pajamas back to its proper position, making sure his erection — which was not flagging at all, damn it straight to hell — was completely concealed. 

Harry’s head reappeared through the drapes. “Are you seriously going to make me _ask_ you if I can sleep here, Malfoy?”

“Er, no?” Draco said awkwardly. 

“Shove over, then,” Harry said.

Draco didn’t know where to put his hands, his feet, even his eyes. He cast a quick Nox and slid down in bed, which creaked as it adjusted to Harry’s weight.

Potter laid down on his back, so Draco turned on his as well. He was sure he’d never fall asleep — he was still hard, for one thing, and Potter’s proximity wasn’t going to help that at all. But Harry shut his eyes and didn’t seem inclined to talk, so Draco closed his eyes and took a few of his calming breaths. 

The next thing he knew, he was coming slowly out of sleep in the dim room, lying on his side, facing Harry. He opened his eyes slowly — so Harry wouldn’t know if he was looking, if he was even awake, if he was even still there. He was. Draco’s heart gave a mad thump. 

Harry was sitting up, his head resting against the headboard. The circles under his eyes were so dark that they looked like bruises in the early morning light. His shoulders were slumped, and one of Draco’s own books open and ignored on his lap. He was beyond exhausted, but his eyes were half-open, heavy lids dulling the green behind them. 

Draco wiped the back of his hand over his mouth, smoothed down his hair. He was suddenly conscious that he’d never woken up beside someone like this before. He pushed himself up; his shoulder was close enough to Harry’s that he could feel his warmth, but they didn’t touch. 

“Potter,” he said, his voice still rough with sleep. “You’re awake?’’ 

Harry shrugged one shoulder. “I’m always awake, Malfoy.” 

“What time is it?” Draco asked, fumbling for his wand to cast Tempus. Harry ignored him. 

“That bastard took Hogwarts away from me,” he said quietly, gazing down at his lap. “This was the only place I ever had that felt like mine, that felt like my home. Now I can’t even relax enough to sleep here. I just close my eyes and I see...” he trailed off. “You know.” 

Draco nodded. “Voldemort?”

Harry looked at him, finally. “Sometimes Voldemort. Sometimes other things. You?”

“Me too. Sometimes.”

They sat in silence for a minute, thinking about Fiendfyre and massive snakes and screams echoing in the Great Hall. Someone — Draco didn’t even know which one of them it was — moved a fraction of an inch so their shoulders touched. Draco leaned into it, hard. He couldn’t help it; he couldn’t even remember why he should want to fight the urge to touch Harry anymore, with the weak morning light filtering in through the curtains, and the warmth of Harry’s shoulder pressing into his, and sadness enveloping both of them together.


	4. Chapter 4

Harry couldn’t believe how much he liked spending his nights with Malfoy. It was beyond the highlight of his day; it was the only time he felt like he could breathe, sometimes. The only time he felt like himself. 

And they’d begun to talk about everything, up together late at night. Harry told Draco about his dreams, even the ones about Draco himself. (Well, some of them, anyway.) He described the terrifying nightmares in the Room of Requirement, where the Fiendfyre consumed them or Draco fell off the broom and Harry couldn’t grab him. 

They talked about sex, even. Once. 

“I never slept with Ginny,” Harry found himself saying. “She’s a lot younger than me, and things were so, you know… strange and awful because of the war, and we just didn’t shag. We never did more than kiss. I never even wanted to, honestly. And we definitely weren’t in love or anything. She got a bit weird when I told her I was bisexual, I’m not sure why.”

Draco was staring at him and Harry couldn’t read his expression, so he just kept talking. Babbling, some might say, but he couldn’t make himself stop.

“I mean, I don’t know, it didn’t end badly, I guess. We just weren’t right together and we both knew it. In some, like, other kind of reality, Ginny and I probably wound up together with a couple of kids or something.”

Draco was still silent, looking at Harry like he was completely daft. 

“I mean, we’re still friends, but Ginny doesn’t, you know, _love_ me. Except for Hermione and the Weasleys, and maybe Hagrid, everyone who ever really loved me is dead,” he said nonchalantly. 

Draco hadn’t spoken in so long that he had to clear his throat before he started. 

“Are you serious?” he asked, looking shocked, far more than Harry had intended. 

“Yeah. I mean, think about it,” he said. “My mum and dad, first off, and then Sirius, and then—”

“You don’t need to take me through it person by person,” Draco said, but there was no heat to it. “I get it. I’m…” Draco trailed off, and Harry realized how seldom he’d ever seen Draco at a loss for words. “That’s horrible. I’m sorry, Potter.”

An awkward silence settled over them. They both shifted their weight, and Harry was suddenly, oddly, aware that they were in a bed together. He didn’t usually think about it when they talked.

“So how many blokes have you been with?” Harry heard himself ask, and Salazar’s pants, why couldn’t he _ever_ stop himself from saying the first thing that popped into his bloody head the moment he started feeling uncomfortable?

Draco huffed a shocked little laugh. “Merlin, Potter, you really need to work on your conversational skills. There’s never any sodding transition with you.”

“Er, sorry, Malfoy, you don’t have to answer if—”

“It depends how you define ‘been with,’” Draco drawled.

“Define it however you want,” Harry replied, his mouth going dry.

“Do circle jerks count?”

Harry fixed a wide-eyed stare on the side of Draco’s face. It looked like it was costing Draco some serious effort not to turn his head, and his ears had gone suspiciously pink. 

“Are you serious, Malfoy?” Harry’s voice came out a squeak, and he had to clear his throat.

“Don’t judge, Potter!” His imperious voice had a hint of a laugh in it. Harry didn’t know if he was disgusted or jealous or both. Had everyone in Slytherin been bringing each other off all the time? Harry thought about Blaise Zabini, and Theodore Nott, and Crabbe and Goyle... and bloody hell, had his friends in Gryffindor been doing it too and he didn’t know? An image, entirely unbidden, of Ron and Seamus and Neville and Dean— and then he realized that Draco’s shoulders were shaking with laughter.

“Stop messing with me, Malfoy!” Harry said, reaching over to shove him. 

Draco positively guffawed, the git, and changed the subject. Harry let him. But an hour later, after he’d reluctantly padded back to his own cold bed, he couldn’t convince his own mind to stop broadcasting the image that Draco had put there.

***

Draco didn’t sleep at all that night.

After an hour or so, when the other boys’ breathing had evened out, he crept over to Harry’s bed. Draco couldn’t stop thinking about him, couldn’t stop thinking at all, and Harry showed no sign of surprise when Draco pushed the curtain aside. He was still awake, sitting up with his wand lit and a packet of notes and papers on his lap. He gave Draco a small, secret smile that reached his eyes. Draco’s breath caught in his throat.

“Hey,” he said quietly, after he had cast Muffliato again. “Lumos,” he added, and his wand tip burned brighter. Draco felt the warm flare of Harry’s magic, easy and golden, across his skin. His warmth, his smell of apples and soap, met Draco as he climbed into bed. 

He turned to face Harry, and he practically sat on his hands to stop himself, but he still couldn’t keep himself from gently, ever so gently, reaching up to brush the pad of his thumb beneath Harry’s left eye, over the purple stain of his exhaustion. Harry exhaled slowly out of his mouth, closing his eyes and dropping his wand to the bed. He let Draco touch him. He seemed like he maybe, possibly, somehow _wanted_ Draco to touch him.

He brushed his thumb beneath the other eye, slowly, so delicately. Harry’s skin was hot, a bit rough. He wanted to kiss it. He yearned to. 

Draco put his hand over Harry’s, resting on the bed, his slender fingers closing around Harry’s broad palm. Harry squeezed it. 

Their eyes locked for a long moment and Draco forced himself not to look away. Could Harry trust him this much? And then Harry closed his eyes, drawing a shaky uneven breath. He swallowed hard and squeezed his eyes shut, like he couldn’t stand to look, and leaned his forehead against Draco’s. Draco moved his hand to the back of Harry’s neck. 

“Draco,” Harry whispered. “How can you want—” he broke off, unable to keep going. 

Draco held his breath, and then Harry spat out in a furious whisper, “Voldemort _lived_ in me. A part of him lived in my body.” A look of disgust twisted his face. 

Draco felt himself go still. He knew, of course, about the Horcruxes. He knew Harry had been one, knew about the scar, knew he’d had to die to rid himself of the piece of the Dark Lord’s soul lodged within him. Everyone knew all of that. But Draco had never really stopped to consider how that had felt, or what it had meant. 

Their foreheads were still touching, Draco’s hand still on his neck, Harry still breathing hard with his eyes shut. 

“Practically my whole life,” Harry whispered. “He was there. He was inside...”

He pulled away and turned his head down

“It’s disgusting. I want to... to rip my body apart from the inside. And no one — no one — will ever want to touch me. That’s why I broke up with Ginny,” Harry said, on a roll now, his words tumbling out. “Well — that was one of the reasons. Not the only one. Maybe not even the biggest one. But how could anyone ever want to be near me, knowing that? How could you stand it? I can barely stand myself. I lie awake at night and I feel where he used to be, inside me.”

Harry broke off, his eyes shining in the low light — tears or just exhaustion, Draco couldn’t tell. 

“I want to,” Draco said, his voice raw and low. 

“Want to what,” Harry said, avoiding his eyes. 

“Be near you. Touch you,” Draco said, and Harry looked up sharply. 

“You’re just saying that to make me feel better,” Harry said suspiciously, but Draco quirked an eyebrow and, swallowing hard, willing himself to be brave — to be cheeky, even — cast his gaze meaningfully down to his lap. Where his cock was pressing insistently, visibly, up into his pajamas. 

Harry made a noise like he was choking. 

“I don’t care about Voldemort, Harry. If you knew some of the things that happened in my parents’ house…” Draco trailed off, not sure how to finish the sentence. “But, wait. I know you said you’re… I mean, you do fancy blokes, too, right? Have you ever been with one?” Draco felt like he was watching himself from far away; this conversation was so humiliating, he couldn’t even see to the other side of it. If Potter rejected him now—

His thoughts were interrupted as Harry launched himself gracelessly on top of Draco, knocking him back onto the bed. 

“Potter, you arsehole, get off me!” Draco sputtered, shoving Harry away. “Way to ruin the moment! What are you, a bloody flobberworm?”

“Wait, what?” Harry sputtered back. “You fancy blokes too, don’t you? Go on, then!”

“Not now, Potter!” Draco cried. “You— _look_ at you! You’re a mess! You’re an absolute disaster. You haven’t slept in months, you’re emotionally wrecked... we’ll do it properly, Potter, not this way.”

Harry seemed to have lost his power of speech. “Aaaeghhhh!” he moaned, leaning back and shoving a pillow over his face. “Fuck! Merlin’s beard, Malfoy. Way to put the pressure on.” 

“I’ll help you, you bastard,” Draco said, his traitor’s heart racing with the desire to do the exact opposite of what he’d just done — namely, for Harry to touch him all the time, everywhere, all at once. Harry’s weight on top of him... fuck, yes, absolutely. But no, not not this way, all desperation and angst in the middle of the night. Not yet. 

Draco dragged himself out of his own thoughts. “Potter, does it ever occur to you that you’re, you know, a _wizard_? Have you even tried a potion? Dreamless Sleep?”

Harry scowled. “Of course, you wanker. It was the first thing I tried. Mrs. Weasley gave it to me the night after — well, you know. The first night, afterward. It was horrible.”

Draco almost asked why, but bit back his question. That first night… he’d nearly blocked it out, but it had been that awful for him too. He didn’t need to ask; he could imagine why. 

“I won’t use potions,” Potter continued, his jaw hard and squared. “That stuff will mess you up. I’m not going to become an addict on top of everything else.”

“You’re being ridicul—” Draco started to argue, out of sheer habit of always arguing with everything Harry ever said or thought. But he cut himself off when he saw the warning look on Harry’s face. And, well... he suddenly had another idea. 

“Ever wank yourself to sleep, Potter?” Draco asked, using his oldest trick: smirking. And trying to breathe through the thunderous roar in his ears at the mere thought of Harry touching himself. 

“Come off it, Malfoy,” Harry protested, but his ears were suddenly pink and his face flushed, and Draco knew he had him. He upped his smirk and added an arch of his eyebrow. “What, you want me to wank with you right here?!”

“Of course not, Potter,” Draco said, willing his voice to stay steady. “I’m here. I have hands, last time I checked.”

Harry stared at him, flushed, gorgeous, ridiculous. “That’s your plan?” He laughed uneasily. “You’re going to pull me off and that’s going to put me to sleep?”

“I suppose you think you have a better idea, then, Potter? Clearly what you’ve been doing so far has been working beautifully,” he said, gesturing toward Harry’s disheveled hair and exhausted face. “Getting off helps... other people... get to sleep,” Draco added, trying to keep his voice casual. 

Harry barked out a laugh. “It helps _other_ people, does it?” 

Draco was about to fire off a retort just as Harry said, “Well, go on, then.”

Draco’s mouth fell open. “Isn’t this romantic,” Draco drawled, trying to cover up his shock, but his heart thrilled anyway. How many nights, how many years of nights, has he imagined this — Harry’s cock in his hand, in his mouth? Merlin. This was happening. 

Harry shifted uncomfortably. Was he adjusting himself beneath the covers? He couldn’t look at Draco, wasn’t meeting his eye anymore, and the awkwardness of this before-it-happened moment threatened to rise up and ruin the whole thing. 

So, deciding that flobberworms had a good thing going, Draco launched himself across Harry, shoving him down to the pillows and leaning over him. 

“Nice foreplay, Malfoy,” Harry said, but it was nearly swallowed up in the gasp that followed it as Draco pushed his hand down Harry’s pants. He tipped up his hips and Draco yanked his pants down, freeing his cock, already red and half-hard, the tip blunt and lovely. Draco’s mouth wanted it but his hands couldn’t keep away; he straddled Harry, pinning him to the bed, and gripped his cock in his left hand. It was only an average cock, objectively speaking, nothing special. But Draco never managed to be objective when it came to Harry Potter. 

Harry’s eyes were squeezed closed, his body bucking up to meet Draco’s hand, which he hadn’t even moved yet. Harry’s head was thrown back, his back arched, his longish black hair spread out on the pillow. He was biting down on his bottom lip so hard that Draco worried he was going to draw blood. 

Draco moved his hand on Harry’s cock. He drew it up once, slowly, and relished the low moan that it drew from Harry’s throat. Oh Merlin, he already looked completely wrecked.

Harry’s hand came up to try to cup Draco’s arse, but he shoved it away. “Not now, Potter,” Draco hissed, and Harry swallowed and nodded blankly. He followed directions well, Draco noted, and filed away in his mind for some later date.

Drawing his hand down, Draco allowed himself to lick at Harry’s jawline. One more stroke and he kissed the spot just beneath Harry’s ear, and Harry writhed. He _writhed_. 

Draco pushed his hand down, his palm flat on Harry’s bollocks, at the same moment that he nipped at Harry’s ear. With another huge buck of his hips, Harry came. And came and came and came, with a loud filthy groan, his head tipped back and his back arched, looking impossibly beautiful. Draco kissed and bit at him through his orgasm, fighting the urge to suck a bruise onto that long golden neck. 

Harry began to laugh quietly, a sweet sound that brought a smile unwittingly to Draco’s lips. He moved his hand and picked up his wand, and spelled a quick cleaning charm over Harry’s body. Shivering a bit under Draco’s magic, Harry started to say something, but Draco cut him off. 

“Shhhh, Potter. Go to sleep. That’s the whole point.”

“But—”

“Shhhh,” Draco said again, pulling up the covers and arranging them around Harry, who just smiled silently. He turned on his side — the way he liked to sleep, Draco knew now — and closed his eyes. His breathing deepened and slowed almost immediately. 

It worked. It. Bloody. Worked, Draco said to himself. He forced himself to wait until he was completely sure Harry was asleep. He stole one last look at Harry’s sleeping face and slipped back into his own bed, parting the curtains and hurling himself in. The curtains hadn’t even swung closed completely when he was already roughly shoving his hand — the same hand, the hand that had touched Harry — down past the waistband of his pajamas to grab at his own cock and grip it hard.

Draco exhaled long and slow, his hand working. He stroked up once, twice, three times, head thrown back and eyes closed, picturing what he’d been doing a few moments ago. He pressed down on his bollocks and came hard, after just a few strokes, the same way like Harry had — although Draco forced himself to be silent. For now.


	5. Chapter 5

Harry woke up gasping just a few hours later, alone in his bed. The feeling of his old cupboard was all around him, panic coursing through his body. And then he remembered how he’d fallen asleep, and the panic changed direction but didn’t abate.

Maybe he and Draco just needed more practice.

Harry firmly shut his mind to any connection between Draco and his nightmares and, dear god, Dudley. His dreams were as much about the Dursleys as anything else, which was baffling, considering the violence and drama of the years after he’d left their house. The cupboard, for instance, hadn’t scared him at all when he was actually in it; in fact, it had been his safe haven. Why had it started showing up in his dreams like this?

In fact, his life with the Dursleys had been mostly tedium and drudgery, punctuated by sharp bouts of unpleasantness, but nothing close to fighting Voldemort. Still, his subconscious raised up the strangest tidbits about them... the way Uncle Vernon’s face would twist before he exploded in anger. The unmistakable hollow feeling of an empty stomach as he tried to fall asleep at night. The pattern of bruises that Aunt Petunia’s tight fingers would leave on Harry’s upper arm. The way, when he was so young, only 5 or 6, he learned to slide the sleeve of his too-big t-shirt down to cover up those shameful bruises so no one would ask questions. No one ever did, anyway. 

And, although Harry didn’t want it, there was a tiny black seed of resentment saved for Dumbledore buried somewhere within him, too. Dumbledore, whom he loved and — he thought — understood. But, during those inky hours in the middle of the night, lying awake, that seed sometimes threatened to grow. Had Dumbledore been able to see what Harry’s life was like on Privet Drive? Had he known? If so, why had he kept Harry there — and if not, how could he have been sure Harry was safe? Because he may have been protected from Voldemort, but he most assuredly had not been safe. 

Harry sighed and flipped his pillow over to the cool side. He pushed open his own curtains and stared at Draco's bed, its curtains stubbornly closed, and found himself thinking — and thinking and thinking and thinking — about him. About the way he looked just before he laughed, and the sarcastic arch of his brows. The way his eyes shone in the half-darkness. About his hands, and his long cool fingers. About his mouth.

Letting his drapes swing back into place, Harry reached down and ran his palm along his rapidly hardening cock. He was still a little sticky — from Draco, his mind supplied eagerly, from Draco’s mouth and his own come — and he gave himself a gentle stroke up, then down, pressing hard on the base of his cock. Fuck, Malfoy’s mouth. Malfoy’s mouth had been right there. He stroked again, running his thumb far down into the base, pressing the flat of his palm against his bollocks, stroking slowly and then faster, squeezing hard. He reached one hand up and stroked the spot on his own jaw where Draco’s mouth had been, traced his own earlobe, remembering where Draco’s teeth had touched him. It was tender now and Harry pressed it, hard, and came again, almost as fast as the first time. 

Panting, his breath coming quick even after it was over, Harry realized: He needed to touch Draco. Now. Five minutes ago. As soon as humanly possible.

***

After that night, they fell into a pattern. About 20 minutes after the other boys were asleep, one of them would appear at the other’s bedside.

Harry vastly preferred going to Draco’s bed, which he must have charmed to always smell and feel amazing, with crisp fine sheets and the softest blankets, but Draco seemed to prefer the opposite and would often appear before Harry got out of bed. He sometimes came early enough that he must have been risking being seen by their careless, utterly oblivious roommates, who slept with their curtains open half the time, but Draco never mentioned anything. He would just climb into Harry’s bed and cast Muffliato like he belonged there. The haughty, self-assured manner Harry used to hate making things feel strangely easy, like foregone conclusions that didn’t need to be discussed. 

Harry loved Draco’s company at the end of the day, loved the way they could talk or not. He loved how Draco seemed to just live in his own skin and not question every stupid thing he did or said or felt, the way Harry himself did. 

He did not love the way Draco batted his hands away every time he reached out for him. 

Weeks went by. They didn’t always fool around and they didn’t always talk, but usually it was one or the other or both, every single night. And they always snuck back to their own beds at some point in the night. Harry still wasn’t sleeping much, but it was better; there were days when he woke up when it was already light out, and whole nights when nothing terrified him in the darkness. 

Even when the nightmares came — and they did still come, not infrequently — it was better. Draco would wake him up and they’d recede. The Dursleys and his cupboard would fade into a distant memory; Voldemort’s awful high laugh would drain away; the forest would go back to just being a forest. Sometimes, if he asked, Draco would hold him tightly and talk to him, tell him long stories about his childhood and Quidditch and Christmas dinners until Harry fell back to sleep.

During the day, Harry found himself completely torn about Malfoy. They largely avoided each other — just old habits, Harry assumed, although it felt more and more awkward and difficult the longer things went on. They had most of their classes and meals together, although they always sat separately, and several times a day, he found himself staring at Malfoy, thinking of his hands and his lips and his eyes and the way his voice got rough when he touched Harry. 

And, of course, why Draco wouldn’t let him do the things that Harry increasingly, desperately, wanted to do to him. 

So of course, that night — _because you never can manage to keep your own bloody thoughts in your own bloody head_ , Harry berated himself — he had to ask. 

The moment Malfoy opened his curtains, Harry blurted out, “Why won’t you let me touch you?”

Draco put a finger to his lips and shot him a murderous look; he hadn’t cast the silencing charm yet. As he did it, Harry felt the sharp pull of Draco’s magic, somehow green-feeling, cool and warm at once. Both of them were still for a moment, in case the other boys had heard. No sound came, though, and Malfoy busied himself moving back the covers and stretching out next to Harry. 

“Good evening to you too, Potter,” he said wryly. 

“Well?” Harry asked, impatient. “Why?”

“Why what?” Draco was annoyed, refusing to look at him. This wasn’t what Harry had wanted, but it was too late now. 

“You know, Malfoy, come on. Don’t make me say it again.”

Draco rolled his eyes. “Did it ever occur to you that I don’t _want_ you?”

Of course it had — and Harry was shot through with a prickly stab of anxiety just hearing Draco say the words — but he thought back to the way he knew Draco responded to him, to the way his back arched when Harry managed to get his tongue in Draco’s mouth, and to the way he couldn’t help himself from rolling his hips when Harry was pressed against him. 

For fuck’s sake, Harry was hard just thinking about Draco maybe possibly someday wanting him. 

So of course, he soldiered on. 

“I think you do want me,” he met Draco’s eyes, challenging. “No, I know you do. And I know I want to touch you. Why won’t you let me?”

***

_Fuck, fuck, FUCK_ , Draco thought. He did not want to be having this conversation. He didn’t want to say the words to Potter, to bloody sexy Potter and his bloody gorgeous shoulders and those bloody emerald eyes, he couldn’t even think with him _looking_ like that.

“Because I don’t deserve it, all right?”

Draco heard the words come out of his mouth, quite apart from his brain’s involvement, and then had no choice but to bury his face in his hands while he burned with shame. How could he have said that out loud?

“What?” 

“Oh, you heard me, Potter. Don’t make me say it again, for fuck’s sake.” 

“Draco...” Harry starts, and Draco feels anxious at his tone. But he waits. “Your mum. Did you know she saved my life?”

Draco sat straight up. “Potter. Are you seriously going to bring up my mother right now.”

Harry smiled, a real smile like a bloody beam of light and warmth, and damn it all, Draco wanted him so badly. He yearned. 

“Seriously, though, Malfoy, do you know what she did for me?”

Draco did know. Narcissa had told him about that night in the forest, haltingly and tentatively, fear and relief making her stumble over her words. 

“Well,” Harry amended. “She did it for you, really, I guess. It must be amazing to have someone love you that much. Someone who’s alive, anyway,” he said, and oh Draco’s heart ached to hear the bitter little laugh that followed. His embarrassment softened, replaced with heartache. 

“She did it for you too, Potter,” Draco said. “She told me afterward that she was desperate to save you and stop the Dark Lord that night. She knew you were... well, that you would eventually have to face him.”

 _Shut up_ , Draco’s mind shouted at him, but his mouth wouldn’t listen. 

“She said... she said she thought about your mother,” Draco continued on, a little reckless. “And how it would have felt for her if it were me.”

He paused. Harry was looking down at his hands; Draco found he still couldn’t stop talking. “And it’s good to have someone love you like that, I suppose, yes,” Draco added. “Even when those someones are a bit of a disaster, in terms of poor choices in their pasts.” 

Harry was silent, turning his wand over in his hands. 

“Like me,” Draco said, without knowing he was going to. All the thoughts he tried so hard to block out, about his decisions that led up to the war and to where he was now... they began to flood over him. “Like my own poor choices. Like the ones that I made with my father, and because of him. And with Dumbledore, I mean. And the ones that... that hurt people, and that led you into danger, Harry. I can’t even begin to tell you how sorry I am. There aren’t even words for me to begin to—”

And then he cut off, his voice giving out mid-sentence. Draco swallowed, but the lump of shame and tears in his throat only grew, and he couldn’t say another word. He turned away from Harry, regret overwhelming him, but Harry’s lips found his somehow. They kissed gently, softly. Harry’s lips were warm and dry, his mouth fit with Draco’s like they’d been made together. 

Harry broke apart first and cleared his throat, a bit formally, and Draco braced himself. Harry looked into his eyes, deeply, with intent. 

“I forgive you, Malfoy,” he said. Some kind of light magic glittered on the words as he said them, a spangly gold haze hanging in the air for the briefest of moments before it disappeared and left Draco wondering if he’d just imagined it. 

Draco let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. He ran through a dozen retorts in his head — things the old Draco would have said, about not needing forgiveness from Harry Potter or anyone — and realized he didn’t want to say any of them, because none of them were true. 

“Thank you,” he said instead, quietly, and he couldn’t hold Harry’s gaze any longer. The tears he’d been trying to swallow rolled down his face, and he buried it in Harry’s shoulder, that beautiful perfect shoulder. Harry’s arms tightened protectively about Draco just as his eye was caught, over Harry’s shoulder, by the sight of the curtain being pulled back on Harry’s side of the bed. 

And wouldn’t you know it: Weasley. Of all the nights for him to finally wake up. 

“Fucking hell,” Draco breathed, as Ron opened with, “What the bloody fuck—” and Harry gave a start. 

The one night we forgot to cast Muffliato. Well, maybe better this night than some of the others, Draco thought darkly, ducking his head away and swiping at his eyes. 

“Ron! Ron,” Harry began. “This isn’t what you think. I mean, sometimes it is. Er, some of the other times, it HAS been what you think, and I guess we can get into a bit of that later, but Draco’s been, er, helping me feel better...”

Harry’s voice faltered and Draco felt suddenly, irrationally furious. If Ron makes him feel ashamed or acts a fool, I’ll hex his bloody ginger head off, Draco thought.

Instead, Ron looked at Harry — really looked at him — and then turned the same look on Draco. 

It took Draco’s breath away. 

He’d never known he’d felt jealous of Weasley’s friends before, and he never would have admitted it if he had. But when Draco saw that look of loyalty and fierceness turned at him for the first time, it made his throat close up and his eyes prick with tears all over again. Circe, Weasley cared about him. How had that happened?

And Draco saw Ron’s eyes were shining with tears of his own, as he turned back to Harry and grabbed him into a hard hug, pounding him on the back like footballers. “Oi, mate,” he said roughly. “S’alright, then. We just— we’ve been really worried for you. Didn’t know what to do.”

“I know,” Harry said, his voice muffled. “I’m worried about you too. And I see how you both look at me... I’m sorry to worry you...”

Ron pulled away roughly and swiped a wrist under his nose. “Honestly, mate. Don’t be sorry. We’re all right. And if... _this_ “ — he gestured toward Draco with wide eyes, a look of disbelief on his face — “is helping, then you’d bloody better keep doing it.”

Harry, pulling himself together, smiled just a bit. It looked like the sun coming through clouds. 

“Yeah, it’s helping.” He smiled properly at Draco and then, shockingly, reached for his hand and twined his fingers through Draco’s. Ron’s eyes grew even wider.

“Well then, I’ll, ah, leave you to it, mate. Glad you’re all right. You too, Malfoy.”

Draco couldn’t stop staring at the drapes, long after they’d swung closed behind Ron’s back. Harry seemed to feel as if something were settled, and burrowed a bit deeper. He opened his arms to Draco and he settled into them, for the first time in quite this way, and almost immediately began to drift off.

“We’ll finish this tomorrow night, and we’ll do it properly. No flobberworm-ing,” Harry whispered when they were both nearly asleep. “You do deserve it.”


	6. Chapter 6

The next day, Draco walked around an absolute quivering mess. He cast Tempus charms so many times during Herbology that Seamus snatched his wand and pretended to snap it over his knee. 

“What are you on about, Malfoy? Waiting for a hot date?”

“Bugger off, you bastard,” he muttered, grabbing his wand back and throwing a light Butterfingers hex at Seamus, who tried to hex back but dropped his wand under his desk instead. Harry turned around at the noise and made eye contact with Draco while Seamus was scrabbling around on the floor, and he gave Draco a slow easy smile that looked for all the world like a simple friendly thing if you didn’t account for the naked lust in his eyes, half-lidded and burning the whole way across the room. 

Draco fell off his stool. 

Seamus whacked it with his head in an attempt to stand up and fell back down, so that both of them were sprawled behind their bench and Sprout came over to scold them, without conviction, for whatever they were doing. 

The day dragged and dragged, and finally — finally! — Draco found himself getting ready for bed, finally taking extra care cleaning his teeth and casting freshening charms all over everything: his breath and his body and his bed and his pillow. Everything. 

Someone shouted “Nox!” and the room went dark. Before Draco had time to worry — would Harry even come? what if he’d forgotten? did he expect Draco in his bed instead? — Harry was next to him, with the unmistakable muffled crack of Apparition. 

“Hey!” Draco started, but Harry had already cast a wordless Muffliato and was fully on top of him, pressing him into the mattress, hands everywhere, mouth on his, deliciously hot and urgent in a way he’d never been before. 

Draco snogged him and snogged him and snogged him, years of want and lust and anger and loneliness poured into this kiss, Harry’s tongue in his mouth and on his neck and somehow everywhere all at once. 

Draco couldn’t even remember why he wasn’t supposed to allow this, now that his body had tasted it. He couldn’t remember how this started, couldn’t remember the nightmares, couldn’t remember his own name. 

Much too soon, Harry pulled his hot mouth and his hands off Draco, shoved himself down gracelessly, Vanished Draco’s clothes without a word, and took his cock into his mouth. 

Draco heard himself gasp, loud and ragged; he was only half-hard because everything was so sudden, and he wondered wildly if Harry would notice and be upset, would think Draco somehow, impossibly, didn’t want him.

Potter’s teeth scraped at his over-sensitive skin and Draco flinched, letting out a sharp little shriek at the pain. 

“Sorry,” Harry mumbled, pulling away from Draco and looking up at him, his green eyes heavy-lidded, lust and longing written on his face like a poem. “I’ve never done this—”

“I know you haven’t, fuck, don’t worry about it, it’s fine, Potter,” Draco ground out, tangling his fingers in Harry’s shaggy hair and encouraging his head back to where it was, trying not to show his sheer desperation. He was desperate to have Harry’s mouth back on him, desperate for everything about him.

Trust Harry fucking Potter to be this good at something he’s completely terrible at doing, Draco marveled, right before he lost his ability to think.

***

Harry couldn’t stop thinking. Fuck. This wasn’t going well. How did Malfoy make it look so easy? How did he make everything look so easy, so bloody elegant?

He was rock hard, but his brain was shouting at him — there was a cock, someone else’s cock, _Draco Malfoy_ ‘s cock, in his _mouth_ , and there seemed to be an awful lot of it, and how was he supposed to know what on earth to do with it? How did Draco know?

An image of the Slytherin circle jerk appeared unbidden in his mind and Harry clenched his jaw, earning another sharp “ow!” from Draco, far above him. 

“Wait,” he heard Draco say, as if from a distance. “Stop,” and Harry’s heart crashed to the floor.

***

Stop?! Why had he just said _stop_?! Draco’s cock was screaming at him for being such a bloody idiot, but the words had come out before he even knew what he was saying. It was like his cock, his brain, and his mouth weren’t operating together, like he was a collection of disconnected, confused parts that couldn’t decide what they wanted.

But some tiny part of him knew — it was too much, too fast, like he was on overload, and now Harry, bloody fucking gorgeous Harry, was looking at him with some mixture of fear and guilt and horror on his face. Damn it. 

“I just—” Draco pulled back from him. 

“I’m sorry,” Harry said in a rush, his face red and his hair rumpled. “I’m so bad at this, I don’t know what I’m doing, I—”

“No, no,” Draco interrupted, panting, barely able to speak. He ran a hand through his hair, then forced himself to look straight at Harry again. 

“I’m sorry. It’s brilliant. You’re brilliant. But I need... to slow down or something. To go slower. Not stop, just slow down. Okay? Is that okay?”

“Of course, yeah, that’s okay,” Harry said, breathing hard, and Draco heard the roughness in his voice, he could actually _hear_ how turned on Harry was without even looking at him, and suddenly he knew what he wanted, if only he could make himself brave enough to ask for it.

“Would you, um,” Draco stumbled. “Could you... touch yourself?”

Harry looked confused, his eyebrows knitting together. “You want to watch me wank?”

Draco felt his breath leave him in a huff, a quick and wicked little laugh. “Yes. I really, really want to watch you wank.”

“We could stop, you know.” Harry looked doubtful. “Don’t do this on my behalf. We could just go to bed.”

“Believe me, Potter, it is completely for my own benefit.” Draco willed himself to drawl instead of pant, which is what he wanted to do. “Do what you usually do. Pretend I’m not here.”

Harry still looked skeptical, but he lay back on the bed and slid off his pajamas. He’d been wearing nothing underneath. 

“You’re sure?” he asked uncertainly. 

Draco just nodded, his eyes drinking Harry in. The full length of him naked was simply beautiful, skinny and scarred but somehow radiant, gorgeous, exactly right. Draco saw Harry swallow, saw how nervous he was but also how willing, and fuck, he was almost coming on the spot just from looking. 

Harry wrapped a hand around his cock, his eyes locked on Draco’s, a small smile starting to play at his lips. “This is mental,” he said, beginning a slow stroke up. 

Draco couldn’t move his eyes. He was frozen, glued to the sight of Harry in front of him. Harry gave himself a few more slow strokes and his cock hardened visibly. Draco couldn’t figure out where to put his own hands, couldn’t think of anywhere they belonged except on Potter, and after only a minute or two, Draco gave up. He reached out for Harry, grabbed him and pulled him down and ground their erections together brutally hard. Harry gasped and grabbed at Draco. 

Draco shoved a hand between them and started to pull Harry off, his knuckles brushing his own throbbing cock, but Harry pulled back. 

“I need— please let me touch you, I’m sorry, Malfoy, I need to, _please let me, please_ ,” Harry whispered hoarsely into Draco’s ear. 

He was begging and fuck, it was beautiful. 

“Yes, okay, yes Potter, touch me,” Draco whispered back, arching shamelessly into Harry’s hand. 

But with a visible effort, Harry stopped. He stilled his hand and pulled back to look straight at Draco, who kept grinding against him, so close to coming, looking for friction. 

“Wait,” Harry ground out. “You said— you wanted to slow down...”

“We did, it’s fine, I promise,” Draco replied, hearing the roughness, the need, in his own voice now. “I want you to, please, please do it.” He took Harry’s hand and wrapped it around his both of their cocks at once, bucking up into his touch. 

Harry came almost immediately, all over his stomach and his thighs. Draco followed him a bare second later, and he felt impossibly wonderful. A giddiness coursed through Draco; for once, he stopped thinking and just _felt_ , and fuck, it was bloody brilliant. 

Draco pulled Harry to him and wrapped his arms around him, with Harry’s head on his chest. Draco could _feel_ him smiling. 

Draco stayed awake until Harry fell asleep. It didn’t happen right away, but when it did, it lasted until the sun shone strong through the curtains, and Draco made sure that Harry awoke with Draco still by his side.


	7. Epilogue

Six weeks later, sleeping together every night is the new normal. 

Harry tells Draco more than he’s ever imagined telling anyone. Sometimes he tells Draco things he barely realizes himself. 

“My aunt and uncle were terrified of me,” he says one night. “They didn’t understand magic, and they weren’t evil; they were just scared.”

“They were still unconscionable arseholes, Potter.”

“Well, yeah,” Harry says, waving his hand vaguely. “But they were just trying to protect their family the best way they knew how, even though—“

Draco cuts Harry off, looking murderous. “I hope you’re going to send that sentence with ‘they abused me horribly because they’re immoral, vile, cowardly wankers, who should have been arrested by their own Muggle authorities or thrown in Azkaban by—’”

“Right, yeah.” Harry waves him away again. He knows it’s true, and some part of him probably needs to hear it, but he wants to get through to Draco. “All I mean is, they were scared, and they didn’t want me. I was weird and different; I didn’t fit anywhere. I’d sometimes go without speaking for days. I literally did not have one single friend for my entire childhood. And then when I got to Hogwarts, and Dumbledore... well, you know how Dumbledore—” 

“— completely took advantage of you and kept you in the dark about far too many things about your _own life_ and even though he cared about you, he—”

“Stop interrupting!” Harry smiles, but he needs to get this out, needs Draco to really hear it. “Dumbledore did care about me, yes, but he also wanted me to do things in service of the greater good. Which was fine” — he noticed Draco glowering — “okay, it wasn’t completely fine, but it wasn’t about me at all. As a person, I mean. It was me as a Horcrux, not me just as a person. And now that the war is over, a lot of people want me but, like, they want a piece of me. Or the me they think I should be and not the me I really am.”

Draco had softened over the course of Harry’s words, and he reaches over to put his hand over Harry’s. He feels Draco’s skin, cool and soft, and he feels his own skin warm to the touch. He felt how much he wanted Draco to understand. 

“I just want to be wanted for me,” he finishes simply. “Not that I even know what that means exactly. But... yeah. That’s it.”

“I know what you mean, Potter,” Draco says, and Harry knows he understand. He bends down to brush his lips against Draco’s, but he doesn’t want more than that, not tonight. He curls into Draco, resting his head on his chest. After a few minutes, he feels Draco’s breathing slow, and he tell he’s beginning to drift off to sleep.

“Draco?” he asks innocently.

“Mm,” Draco mumbles into his hair. 

“Can I ask you something?” 

“Of course.”

“Did you really do the circle jerk?”

Draco laughs low and sweet, then. “I’ll never tell, Potter.” 

Harry laughs too, waiting for sleep to come as he listens to the steady thump of Draco’s heart, strong and true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Kudos and comments much appreciated, if you feel so inclined - I'd love to know what you thought.


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